LITMIR.BIZ

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       CHAPTER FOUR

      ‘Mr Swain, I’d like to take you over your statement again,’ said Dalziel with the effulgent smile of a man who wants to sell a used Lada.

      Swain glanced at his watch with the air of a man who has two minutes to spare and has started counting. Sharp-featured, deep-eyed and black-haired, he was quite striking in a Mephistophelean kind of way. And his rather supercilious appearance was matched by the voice which said, ‘I thought I’d already been as clear as I could without supplying a video, Superintendent.’

      Dalziel smiled wolfishly. Pascoe guessed he was thinking: Oh, but you did, my lad! But this was no time to be seeing Swain through Dalziel’s indisputably prejudiced eyes. Pascoe was more interested to find the oddities he had detected when reading the statement confirmed by his first meeting with the man. Stereotyping was of course a fascist device for perpetuating class divisions but Pascoe found himself unable to avoid a prejudice which provided your paradigmatic jobbing builder with Stringer’s cloth cap, baggy trousers and vernacular speech forms, rather than Swain’s Daks blazer, Cartier watch, and upper-class phonemes.

      Dalziel said, ‘Last night when you wrote your statement, you were naturally upset. Who wouldn’t be? Man kills his wife, he’s got a right to be upset. I’d just like to be sure you got things down like you really wanted. Here, take a look, tell me if there’s owt you want to change.’

      He pushed a photocopy of Swain’s statement across the table. Swain said softly, ‘A man who kills his wife? I think either I must have misheard or you must have misread, Superintendent.’

      ‘Sorry, sir. Slip of the tongue,’ said Dalziel unconvincingly. ‘Though you do say as it was mebbe your efforts to get the gun off her that … anyroad, you just read through what you wrote and let me know if it’s right.’

      Swain ran his eyes down the sheets. When he finished he sighed and said, ‘It’s like a nightmare, all confused. I’m amazed I could have written this so clearly, but, yes, it’s the most sense I can make out of the fragments. Would you like me to sign it again?’

      ‘No need,’ said the fat man. ‘Signing a cheque twice won’t stop it bouncing. If it’s going to bounce, I mean. Anyroad, there’s notes been taken, so all this is on the record.’

      Wield was taking the notes. Pascoe had been invited along to observe. What the tactics were likely to be he could only guess. Dalziel’s response to the news of Waterson’s statement and subsequent disappearance had been stoic to the point of catalepsy, encouraging his colleagues to move in his vicinity like off-piste skiers. But his abandonment of the idea of leaving Swain to sweat till after lunch showed how seriously he was taking things.

      ‘This wife of yours, did she make a habit of carrying guns around with her, Mr Swain?’ inquired Dalziel.

      ‘Of course not. At least, not to my knowledge.’

      ‘Not to your knowledge, eh? And I dare say you would’ve noticed if she’d started slipping three pounds of Colt Python down her cleavage, wouldn’t you?’

      ‘Of what?’

      ‘Colt Python, weighs forty-four ounces unloaded, overall length eleven and a quarter inches, fires the .357 Magnum cartridge,’ said Dalziel quoting the lab’s preliminary weapon report.

      ‘Was that what it was?’ said Swain. ‘I’ve no interest in guns.’

      ‘So you’d never seen this one before?’

      ‘Never.’

      ‘Is that so? You did know she was a member of a gun club, didn’t you?’ said Dalziel.

      ‘Of course I did.’

      ‘And you never noticed any of her weapons about the house? They have to be kept under lock and key, Mr Swain, in a proper cabinet. You mean to tell me that a pro builder like you never noticed this interesting extension to your wife’s wardrobe?’

      Dalziel’s sneers were as subtle as birdshit down a windscreen. Swain said wearily, ‘The guns weren’t kept in the house, except on the odd occasion she’d been shooting in some competition at another club and needed to store one overnight. That’s the only reason we had the secure cabinet put in. Otherwise they were kept in the club armoury.’

      Dalziel looked nonplussed for a moment.

      ‘When was the last time she had a gun at home, then?’ he asked.

      ‘A couple of years ago, I’d say,’ said Swain. ‘She gave up competition shooting, you see, so there was never any reason to remove them from the club.’

      ‘And you aren’t a member of this club?’

      ‘No. I told you. I hate guns, ever since … well, I’ve always hated them. And I was right, wasn’t I?’

      His voice rose to something not far short of a shout. Dalziel regarded him speculatively for a while, then he turned on a sympathetic smile, his face lighting up like the Ministry of Love.

      ‘I’m glad you feel like that about guns, Mr Swain. My sentiments entirely. I gather there’s a very different attitude to gun-ownership in the States.’

      He made the States sound like somewhere beyond Alpha Centauri.

      ‘I believe so,’ said Swain. He put his hand to his brow as if to massage a headache. Then he asked in a low voice, ‘Has my mother-in-law, Mrs Delgado, been told?’

      ‘I expect so,’ said Dalziel negligently. ‘Leastways we told the Los Angeles police. She’s sick, you say?’

      ‘Yes. She’s pretty well bedridden now. The most optimistic prognosis is a year, perhaps eighteen months.’

      ‘So your missus would be planning a long trip mebbe.’

      ‘It was open-ended. Naturally, if the end looked imminent, Gail would have stayed.’

      ‘So that’s why she took most of her clothes?’

      ‘What? Oh yes, of course. You’ve been poking around the house.’

      ‘Not me personally. One of my officers. Routine. But he did say it looked like there’d been a good clear-out.’

      ‘If you’d ever seen what Gail packed for a weekend in the country, you’d not be surprised at that, Superintendent,’ said Swain sadly.

      ‘Oh aye, I know what you mean,’ said Dalziel with a rueful shake of his head to express male solidarity. ‘How long do you reckon she’d have stayed in Hambleton Road, Mr Swain?’

      ‘How the hell should I know? You’d better ask Waterson that.’

      ‘I shall. Make a note to ask Mr Waterson when you see him, Sergeant Wield,’ said Dalziel.

      Pascoe felt Wield wince beneath his totem-pole impassivity. The Sergeant had set all the systems at top pressure to track down Waterson, but so far there’d been no trace. Wield had spoken briefly to the wife before leaving the hospital. She had denied any knowledge of her husband’s intentions or whereabouts, and agreed to make herself available for a longer interview at the end of her shift.

      Dalziel leaned forward and said, ‘Talking of Waterson, what do you reckon to him, Mr Swain? Setting aside the fact he were knocking off your wife.’

      Swain looked at him in amazement and Pascoe tensed his muscles to intervene. Then Swain shook his head and said, ‘I’d heard about you, Dalziel, but no one got close to the reality.’

      Dalziel looked modestly pleased and said, ‘Well, like they say, only God can make a tree. So? Waterson?’

      ‘I don’t know. He seemed all right. Lively. Pretty bright. Not a good payer, but who is these days?’

      ‘I hope you’ll not have any bother when you finish our

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